


another kind of prayer

by onlybylaura



Category: Winternight Series - Katherine Arden
Genre: M/M, Monsterfucker, ex catholic trash, monsterfucker nation rise, yes that ONE missing scene which we all know we should have gotten
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:01:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25654834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onlybylaura/pseuds/onlybylaura
Summary: Konstantin’s finger curled around the Bear’s throat, and maybe if he squeezed it long enough, this voice would also disappear, and there would only be silence again. An offering to the altar, the silencing of another voice.“There is no way for you to vanquish me, Man of God,” Medved said, as if reading his thoughts. His eye twinkled in amusement at Konstantin’s hand, as if he knew there would come nothing of it. Konstantin despised the company, but he despised the silence even more. “There is only relinquishing.”
Relationships: Medved | The Bear/Konstantin Nikonovich
Comments: 22
Kudos: 29





	another kind of prayer

It was long after dark before they returned to the monastery after silencing another upyry, and Konstantin could still hear the dead’s voices, muttering under their breath, praying for the same thing they had while living. He offered deliverance to a God he knew wasn’t there, his insides twisting as he felt the power of banishing them.

It was not his power. It was only the Bear’s, but there was no point distinguishing the two anymore.

Medved followed him like a shadow, his form towering over Konstantin. Whenever he opened his eyes, the devil was there, watching with his curious eye, bright and burning, and Konstantin was sure he was looking somehow into a mirror of his own.

“Must we do this?” He asked, standing tiredly in the middle of his room. There was paintings and icons half finished, covering the walls and every inch of the vast emptiness of the stones. Where he looked, there were mirrors of him. Saint Paul, Saint Peter, Saint Thomas, the ever-doubtful.

“Two or three miracles do not make a holy man,” Medved said, his words clipped, a hint of amusement on his voice. “We have plans.”

Konstantin knew. Konstantin was tired of listening to the plans.

The worst was over. The witch was dead. Moscow was there for his taking, for everyone to listen to him. And somehow, the only one he still talked to was the devil in his room.

He set the holy relics on his bedside table, taking off his rings one by one. His golden hair shone under the moonlight streaming on the window, and Konstantin could feel the Bear watching him.

“Men have good ways to fight off tiredness,” the Bear said, a glow in his single eye. “Is that what you want, Konstantin? More power than that your inexistent God gives you?”

Konstantin whirled around, because even if he had not said it out loud, he would not hear the mocking, he would not hear the Bear confirm it again and again that the force he wanted didn’t exist. The force he wanted never existed at all, and he had been alone from the start.

The Bear approached him, playing off on his weakness, taking snips off his edges. Konstantin froze in place, and something else rose deep within him, more than his usual want. Something he hadn’t dared think of, not what he truly saw when he looked at the Bear. And still, under that inexistent light inside the room, in the heat of the Summer and while the dead rose up on the street, the priest dared to think of another forbidden thing. Desire.

“Is this not what you want?” The Bear asked again, closer, this time, and Konstantin did not deny it. “I will show you.”

The Bear pushed Konstantin on the bed and he fell back, his back soft against the mattress, and he didn’t want to get up. The Bear climbed after him, his knees locking Konstantin’s hip, his monstrous face hovering above the priest. There was no other way to win any of this.

_Wrong_ , thought Konstantin bitterly, but his answer, if he even expected any, was silence.

Let it consume him.

For that one night, let it burn him up from the inside, like the fire that had blazed through Moscow’s sky. One of Konstantin’s hands rose to meet the Bear’s face, long and tainted fingers reaching out to see how real it was, or if it was only another tormented dream. The hand met skin, but more than that, it seemed to touch an essence—the form hidden underneath, the devil which was a beast on its right, half-human, half-bear, all monster.

Konstantin’s finger curled around the Bear’s throat, and maybe if he squeezed it long enough, this voice would also disappear, and there would only be silence again. An offering to the altar, the silencing of another voice.

“There is no way for you to vanquish me, Man of God,” Medved said, as if reading his thoughts. His eye twinkled in amusement at Konstantin’s hand, as if he knew there would come nothing of it. Konstantin despised the company, but he despised the silence even more. “There is only relinquishing.”

Medved’s touch was firm, but still gentle. The Bear took the hands first, carefully holding them up, as if to get out of harm’s way. Konstantin's were peeled off by claws, open till his chest was laid bare. He was faintly aware of his body responding in kind, of the heat that seemed to climb through his groins, and Konstantin closed his eyes as to deny that last piece of him that refused to let go.

Medved’s mouth touched his, and all prayer was stolen from his lips.  
Konstantin opened his mouth in return, wanting to scream and to fall into the madness, into trembling, but staying all the same, the Bear’s touch both placating and searing. Where he touched, Konstantin reacted, melted. Felt his body grow hard under the Bear’s guidance, his world of darkness making him crave for more. The caresses were worship on his skin, his soul unraveling under another kind of service. There was another way to give power than blood.

Everything else lay forgotten, and there was no fear or anger or hate, and the lust this time seemed to come pure, a devotion made with no second intentions. No taint of the witch, because she had never been the problem, not really, and the release he craved came through the monster’s hand.

The Bear stayed there with him, and when Konstantin tried moving his hand again, the devil rose to meet him. Medved’s hand came up, locking him in a sure grip, protective. His other hand trailed downward, ever reaching, making it burn until Konstantin bit down his own lip until he felt blood, but he remained silent.

His monster. His beloved.

Never one to distinguish. Not that it mattered. Not tonight. Not that anything existed beyond this desire, beyond this thing that would vanish in the morning, and he knew he was being used as much as he was using the Bear. Nothing beyond that.

“Say it,” Medved told him, one hand brushing the blood Konstantin had shed, putting it against his own lips. “Say it.”

Konstantin felt his mouth go dry, but the Bear still held onto him, and in the silence he had always known, in the silence that had been conquered and quelled by the monster's voice, Konstantin only said, “Please.”

Medved took him. There was no pain, and suddenly the blackness was real, and the pleasure took over his body until there could be no more quietness. No more words, either, only the rhythmic sound as Medved was done with him. As Medved undid him from the seams.

_You're mine_ , Medved whispered in the end, when Konstantin had been dissolved into a blissful mist, and he embraced the words as if they were true, because in the end, when God had failed and the devil called, all he wanted was the belonging.

***

The knife to his throat was quick, and the feeling of vanishing even quicker. He didn’t understand half the words being said. Konstantin thought he heard the Bear mutter “please” but that was delirium of his death-filled mind. The priest’s hand flew up inadvertedly to his throat, as if he still couldn’t believe what he’d done. The only way to win this. Did Death not conquer everything?

“You are a fool, man of God,” the Bear said. “You never understood.”

The blood was in his throat, inside it, even when it was already slipping out. “I never understood what?”

“That I do keep faith, in my own fashion,” he said. “I did love your hands.”

The Bear now held it, his fingers, intertwined, and if there was one thing still keeping alive, it was that. Not God’s will, because even at his death, Konstantin still heard nothing, but the mere touch of Medved’s hands, grasping, keeping him there with his claws.

“You are a devil,” Konstantin said, dazzled, his mind vanishing before his words did. “I don’t—aren’t you vanquished?”

The Bear smiled, and his eye twinkled again, and Konstantin almost heard the sorrow. Felt it, on the open gash of his throat, on the echo of his fading heart.

“I am vanquished, man of God.”

Konstantin stared ahead, and he could see nothing but darkness, and Medved’s devil face. Even as it faded, it was the only thing he could see.

The Bear held his head and his hands, and Konstantin let himself be taken. Let himself feel vanquished, at last.


End file.
